The Conservative vs Liberal Tail Chase

Absolute governments (though the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.
–Thomas Paine, â€œCommon Sense,â€ 1776

Think about each of the observations Paine makes in the quote above. They could not describe our current state of socio-political existence any better. We have come full-swing and have arrived back to the days preceding our point of origin. Which way forward?

It is time to stop thinking about politics and start thinking about society. Scholars, such as Paine, did not have Fox, CNN and MSNBC in their days. They bickered just the same, but many actually studied and contemplated society and its interaction vis-Ã -vis politics. Their thoughts ran deep; they were not distracted by mainstream quarrels of the day. Letâ€™s take Paineâ€™s statement above and break it down.

â€œAbsolute governments (though the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springsâ€¦.â€

Here, Paine is saying that if a society is ruled by a dictator, people would have the benefit of being able to immediately know the source from which their oppression emanates.

â€œâ€¦.know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.â€

Confronted by a dictator and knowing the source of their suffering, there is but one remedy â€“ to overthrow the dictator.

â€œBut the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault liesâ€¦.â€

This statement recognizes a pitfall when authority is dispersed among many, and despite such â€œbalanceâ€ of power, the people feel oppressed. It slows the pursuit of social justice. People lose track of where to place blame, and losing their senses of direction, argue among one-another as to how to set the stage for a more general sense of common prosperity and tranquility.

â€œâ€¦. some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.â€

Witness the Republicans vs. the Democrats; the liberals vs. the conservatives; FOX vs. MSNBC; and the independents who are lost in the melee.

The state of politics in America is little different than that which the early Americans experienced in their time. The system is so ill-defined, chaotic and confusing. The smell of corruption is behind almost every politicianâ€™s door.

We argue and squabble and blame. Politics is in its prime. Democrats and Republicans, conservatives, liberals and independentsâ€¦. Weâ€™re all missing the boat. There is a big picture here. We are all the same. We are not the elites; we are the working class. We have, in essence, the same needs. Why do we argue with one another?

Itâ€™s time to return to the pursuit of Enlightenment. We need to make amends, cross political lines, and begin having a meaningful discourse on a socio-political solution. Political labels are destructive.

Are we really â€œconservativesâ€ or â€œliberals?â€ It is time to think about what these words actually mean and not what Hannity and Olbermann tell us they mean.

One thing is for sure. We are the working class; corruption abounds, and we (the middle class) are not doing the corrupting. We are on the same side. We just need to recognize it and find ways to unite. We might find that none of us need to cross to the other side of the line. There might not be a line at all.

Stay tunedâ€¦.

Jeff Matthews [send him email] is an attorney living in Houston, Texas. His current projects include the website SovereignStates, and the forthcoming organization, The National Taxpayer Takeover.

12 thoughts on “The Conservative vs Liberal Tail Chase”

The problem today is not that the system is complex, but that it is entirely FALSE- with the truth having been suppressed for almost 150 years.
FACT: Every state is a popularly sovereign nation under the Constitution; however this was suppressed via mass-murer and censorship in 1861-5, under the claim that they formed only a single nation, and that "A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people."
This translates to the federal government officials being the reigning sovereigns, since they are the final judge of these "constitutional checks and limitations–" and hence of their own powers, as Jefferson warned in the Kentucky Resolutions.
And so it has been ever since.
(continued)

Until the People of each state once again recognize that their state is a sovereign nation– not by the Constitution, but by international law– and assert this fact, then nothing will change- because nothing CAN change. Libertarians are the "weathermen" of government evil: they only ANNOUNCE breaches of the Constitution– they can't DO anything about it. Only state sovereignty can, by nullifying federal laws not pursuant to the Constution, or seceding from the Union entirely.
If Lincoln "settled" the matter of secession in 1865, then Saddam Hussein "settled" the matter of Kuwait in 1990.

Right-o, and I think we need some invocation of the NINTH Amendment in this fight. You know, the one always so fatally ignored:
"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
We can use the 10th and the 9th Amendments, and kick out the criminals who have shanghaied our government, and restore our freedoms here at home, and then restore our standing in the world.

thomas paine's agrarian justice is missing from the debate. the greatest economist philosopher of the past 200 years wasn't maynard keynes, milton friedman, karl marx, and ludwig von mises. those economists are bluntly morons. the native americans had more economic common sense than those douche bags. the man missing from the debate is henry george.

The oldest and most effective tool of controllers has been to "divide and conquer" … thus we "now" (it was not intended to be just this way) have the two parties at each others throats rather than looking above at the "controllers" who have desired it to be this way because it best serves their own selfish interests … our politicians are but their puppets meant to distract us the people from the "string pullers" ….